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<\/a><\/div>\nThis holiday weekend I\u2019ve been reading my brother\u2019s new book, <\/span>Transcending Law: The Unintended Life of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution<\/i><\/a>. Ken Port is a law professor and an expert in international intellectual property law, especially of the Japanese variety. One of the interesting aspects of this for me is how we can believe one thing and be doing something quite different at the same time. This phenomena shows up both collectively and individually and has been very important for me to deal with directly in my own life and practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n One news flash about this came from the woman who was my lover for a few years some twenty years back, when she noticed, \u201cYou\u2019re quite uneven, you know?\u201d At the time, I didn\u2019t know.
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A few years ago he became really interested in Article 9, the \u201cpacificist\u201d article of the Japanese constitution, when he noticed that the English translation differed from the Japanese \u2013 the former much more clearly prohibiting the Japanese from re-arming and the latter being quite open to \u201cinterpretation.\u201d Seems that old General MacArthur (who imposed the constitution during the American occupation) got beaten at his own game.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
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In terms of Japan\u2019s pacifism, most people (Japanese and otherwise) believe that they are prohibited from having a military while in fact they have the fourth or fifth largest military in the world. In terms of America, we tell ourselves that we\u2019re environmentalists while we\u2019re the biggest polluters. We tell ourselves that we\u2019re a wealthy country while 20,000 people a day<\/b> go on food stamps<\/a> (adding to the 36 million already receiving help) and while we\u2019re nearing bankruptcy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n